The Hardest Victory is Over the Self
by PJ XD
Summary: A peek inside the minds of the Hunger Games's pool of victors, and what their victory really means to them, afterwards. Glory? Not so much.
1. Haymitch

****_A/N; This is something that's been sitting in my head for a while, so I thought I should just get it out there. _

* * *

**Haymitch**

Cupboard. Liquor. Glass. Drink. Repeat until insane.

I'd welcome insanity. It's what keeps Odair's girl going. Fade out and never have to see the world the way it really is. It would be blissful ignorance.

But no. My brain is all too functional.

So instead of fading out, I tune out.

Refill. Drink. Refill. Drink.

When my vision starts to multiply and blur around the edges, I know I'm on the right track. It hasn't gone far enough yet, though, because when the lights go out and I close my eyes, I can still hear her screaming.

"Haymitch! Haymitch, help me!"

_I'm coming, Maysilee_, I think to myself. But I don't go. I never go, because that's what I do. I watch people die. I feel the blood on my hands, as real and as horrifying as it was in the arena.

Death follows me everywhere. I wear it like a shroud. Death and blood and blood and death. Torture. Maim. Kill. That's how it used to be. Then I won the games. Now, it's even worse. Look. Listen. Live.

_Live on while you watch kids die right in front of you, Haymitch. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Sleep with a knife under your pillow, because that'll protect you from the Capitol's influence_.

Yeah, right.

Maysilee. My parents. My brother. My sisters. My girl. Is it even possible to have that much blood on my hands? I've had blood on my hands since I was sixteen, and no matter how much I scrub, it just doesn't come off. Each passing year just adds another layer.

Drink. Refill. Drink.

They laugh at me in the streets of Twelve. They roll their eyes and call me a drunk, a waste of space, a novelty act. But they don't know, they can't know, and nobody ever does know.

Because nobody else comes back alive.

I fail them all.

I lie awake at night, breathing in the putrid stench of white liquor fumes. The smell that oozes from my every pore. The smell of failure, and death, and the sweet escape that will never, ever come. I lie there, unmoving, and I wait for the nightmares to start.

I let my eyes close, just once when I'm tired.

And I'm in the arena.

Only, this time, I don't fail. I run to Maysilee, and save her just in time. I get her out of there. I kill that girl with my bare hands, not a force field of the Capitol's devising.

Then, I die, and Maysilee wins. She goes back to District Twelve with riches and a family intact. My family weep for me, and move on. My brother goes to work in the mines. My sisters grow up. My girl gets married to some kind, faceless stranger.

And for me, there's nothing but beautiful oblivion.

When I wake up, it hurts all over again. Because I'm not pushing daisies, I'm here, and I'm alone.

Because they're dead. They're all dead. Why did I survive? I'm not stronger.

Then I decide that this must be my punishment. For killing so many. I must live with the guilt, the agony and the torment. I am forced to wander the earth forever in a cloud of liquor fumes, haunted by the ghosts of my past as they blame me, over and over, for not being good enough to save them.

I'm stalked by the death I caused, but to let me die is too great a mercy.

So I bear my punishment the only way I know how.

Cupboard. Liquor. Glass. Drink. Refill.

Repeat until insane.


	2. Finnick

**Finnick**

_I used to look in mirrors when I passed. Now I turn my eyes away. _

When I'm lying here, twisted up in silk sheets that are far too decadent to belong to my bed, I slowly count the seconds down until I'm able to get up.

How soon after she's satisfied can I leave without causing offence? A minute? Two?

I don't know why they ever pretend that this is more than a business transaction. I don't know why they delude themselves. The Capitol breeds delusion and ignorance, though. They behave this way because they don't know any better. Or maybe because they don't care about _being_ better.

Regardless, it's me who suffers.

I'd rather me than my mother. My sister. My district. My tributes.

It could be worse. I could be a sad, angry drunk, incapable of being sober enough to take my baby sister swimming in the sea. Unable to focus on her long enough to smile.

Or would that be worse? Because even when I smile, it feels like a lie.

I'd thought the feeling of hot blood pouring over my hands was the dirtiest I could feel. The sickest. I was wrong. Now, lying here on a bed that isn't mine, in a home that isn't mine, with my arm wrapped around a girl who I don't want to be mine, I feel diseased.

I'm cheap, and nasty, and disgusted with my life.

And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

I shift and sit upright, the sheet falling off me, displaying my naked body. The body that fetches such a high price in the Capitol. I catch a glimpse of my reflection, but jerk away before I get a chance to really see.

Because I don't want to look. The face that breaks a thousand hearts, the body that pleasures a thousand women, it's not mine. It belongs to the Capitol. I just happen to reside in it.

People wanted to be me, or be with me, when I entered the Games. And now, I can't even bring _myself_ to be me.

When I walk down the street in District Four, I play a game. I catch sight of a random guy walking in the opposite direction, and I imagine where he's headed. Work. School. A night out with his girl.

Then I weave out his evening, except that I pretend like I've stepped into his shoes. I'm him, just the ordinary looking baker's son, or the boy who sells fish down at the wharf, or the man that scrapes the seaweed off the pier.

I don't have rippling muscles or captivating eyes or shiny bronze hair or the face of an angel. I never won the Hunger Games. I've no idea what the Capitol looks like, really. I'm just plain, and poor, and for those few imagined minutes, I know what it is to be happy.

I see the families of the tributes I mentor, the ones who die. They look at me with accusing eyes, because they think I've failed them. They hate me, because they've lost their children.

But they don't hate me as much as I hate myself.

I'm drowning in hatred. I can conquer a stormy tide, but I can't conquer my own self-loathing.

I try to distract myself from what I'm doing. Try to feel less like a slave of the skin trade by pretending that I actually want to do this. It doesn't work. The only think that keeps me going is the secret. I always get a secret from my clients, and those intangible, whispered words are worth so much more than their physical currency.

Here's _my_ secret;

I want to go back into the arena, and spear _myself_ with my trident, instead of those twelve tributes.

Because, really, I'm worth much more dead than I am alive.


	3. Annie

**Annie**

I wake up, screaming.

Every night.

But I can't scream, because the water fills my lungs. Water that used to be my friend.

My home.

It taunts me.

I'm drowning.

Always drowning.

The lights. The cannon. The screams.

The smell of blood.

I clap my hands to my ears, but I still hear the screams.

Is it me, or is it them?

I can't be sure.

The water touches my chin.

My chest.

It burns my lungs from the outside in.

This water isn't cool, like the ocean.

It boils with the blood of the dead.

And it drowns me.

I scream until my throat feels raw, one voice in a river of screams.

Is it them, or is it me?

I'm still not sure.

Then hands are on my hands.

They pull my arms away, and I can hear again.

Only one scream.

Me.

"Annie, Annie, it's okay! I'm here. They can't hurt you, I'm here. It's me. I love you."

I hear the voice over the noise in my throat.

My eyes open.

Sea green orbs blink back at me. Beautiful, like real water. Like my ocean.

The only colour that keeps me afloat.

I stop screaming.

"Finnick?" I say.

"It's me, Annie. I love you," he murmurs.

And with his words, he tows me back to shore.

I'm safe.

Until I fall asleep, and the drowning starts again.


	4. Johanna

**Johanna**

Pretend to be weak. That was my strategy when I got into the arena. Pretend to be weak, and vulnerable, and strike when they least expect it.

It worked.

I killed, and I'm not too bothered about that. I did what I had to do. I'd do it again.

I am the Capitol's perfect puppet.

Except for one thing. They made a fatal error with me, the day they slaughtered my loved ones. The day they robbed me of everyone I held dear, just because I wouldn't let them use me as another pawn in their Games any longer.

Haymitch Abernathy warned me, but I didn't listen.

Now they're gone.

And they have nothing left to bargain with. I have no one left who I love.

Maybe it's better this way. Easier, at least. Because I don't care what they do to me. Hang me up, cut me, bleed me. Go ahead. I'll even hold still. They have no way to hurt me now.

Except they figured it out. The only way to hurt me is to do nothing. So they leave me alone. Impotent, powerless and alone. I'm filled with a murderous rage, and I can't fight, because they won't rise to the bait.

Have they really got no mercy? No souls?

Probably.

I fake my dignity and determination. I pretend like everything is normal, when it's not. I hide behind layers of verbal aggression, because the only people who deserve the real kind are tucked away safe in their mansions, eating popcorn and tuning in to watch another round of teenagers kill each other for their perverse entertainment.

While I go for a walk in the woods around Seven, hoping a bear will be kind enough to eat me.

No bear ever bothers coming. Even they don't want to spare me any kindness. I wonder if they're mutts, under the Capitol's influence. It wouldn't surprise me – everything else in Panem is.

One day, just once, I'd like to show them. One day, maybe, I will. I'll stand up, and I'll look Snow in the eyes, and he'll know that I don't accept defeat.

I'll die for sure, but I'll die fighting. The right people, for once.

One day, there'll be another chance, a second version of the Dark Days.

But until then, I'll wait. I'll bide my time, and sit here alone, and I'll wait. I'll plan. I won't give up.

Unless, one of these days, I find a bear who's willing to finish me off.

Then I guess I'll just see Snow in Hell.


End file.
